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Bethesda announced today that Fallout: New Vegas is scheduled for release sometime this fall, and they released a trailer as well. Details are scant yet on the official site, but they had this to say:
"Experience all the sights and sounds of fabulous New Vegas, brought to you by Vault-Tec, America's First Choice in Post Nuclear Simulation. Explore the treacherous wastes of the Great Southwest from the safety and comfort of your very own vault: Meet new people, confront terrifying creatures, and arm yourself with the latest high-tech weaponry as you make a name for yourself on a thrilling new journey across the Mojave wasteland. A word of warning, however — while Vault-Tec engineers have prepared for every contingency,* in Vegas, fortunes can change in an instant. Enjoy your stay. (* Should not be construed as a legally-binding claim.)"

I've played through Fallout 3 twice, and each of the first two more than that. I've even played Fallout: Tactics.

It's not the same game, but it's still very good. Some of my major complaints:

The humor's just not the same. Yes, there's humor there, and I had hope in Bethesda (the lead on Oblivion was also an author of the RPG Paranoia), but it's not what I would've hoped for

The morality aspects are massively simplified -- there's a whole *one* karma meter; there's no concept of factions. (for those who didn't play the originals -- you'd have to develop your reputation with the Brotherhood of Steel, the Bandits, each town you came to, etc.)

Most of the perks are pretty boring -- and if you go to level 30, it's even worse. The original allowed you to take disadvantages to get more points to spend on other things.

It's too easy to max your skills... tag skills are just +15 to a skill. I wanted to say that in the original, it was harder to get skills up to the higher levels (like it started costing 2 points per skill point, but it only cost 1/2 for tag skills)

Fast travel is lame... you never have the random encounters in-transit, although they do make it so you drop right into the middle of the area you're going to fully populated with people (I regularly go to Wheaton Armory to make some fast money). And the times are completely unrealistic -- the time that passes on the clock is negligible compared to walking it. (which wasn't even possible in the originals)

And when walking it -- you have something that just magically tells you when here's areas worth investigating nearby? I guess that gives you a reward for walking about, but they could've at least done it so you don't know about everything when you're 5mi away. (some areas are going to be noticable from miles away; some aren't)

VATS was well done, but I miss shooting out the eyes -- even if it didn't kill, it gave you a chance to even the odds.

There's now variant weapons, but no variant ammo to give you a slight boost, but have to conserve. And ammo gets to be *way* too plentiful. (I used it like caps, as it had no weight -- and anyone who's ever carried around a case of 1000 rounds of anything (other than 22, perhaps) for an extended amount of time knows that's not true)

They screwed up on what's of value... caps inside a safe? Sure, if it's an area that's in use... in an old vault, they should be in trash cans. And any time you find old money in trash cans, that's just stupid.

The explanation for mutants doesn't fit the original story line

And then, there were some other issues that just didn't make sense to me:

A can of pork and beans weighs a pound. An empty can weighs a pound; The same holds true for bottles of stuff and empty bottles.

It's set *much* later than the earlier two -- This means that just about any pre-prepared food isn't going to be safe. Any food stores would've been raided years ago. (a soda machine that still has soda in it?).

The Washington Monument is made from *stone*. There is *no* metal framework on the inside that would've resulted in it looking liked it did in the game

Vendors suddenly just have more money every couple of days... wouldn't they slowly make other sales, especially the traveling vendors?

All of that being said, I still played through twice, and I even started a 3rd play-through. (just put it down 'til I finish another project... and was debating Mass Effect 2, but was told it sucked without an HD TV). It's a good game. It's got some of the personality of the original, and I might be biased as I lived in DC for years, and still live in the metro area, so I got a lot of the places and references. Fallout 3 was well done, and it's a good game, but it could've been better, based on the heritage of the original. As it was, it's more like a ne

All Fallout games have been referred to as simulations in their respective manuals, the premise from the original Fallout being that these were simulations experienced by Vault dwellers to prepare them for life outside the vault.